NADA OU O SILÊNCIO DE BECKETT

staging and scenography
João Paulo Seara Cardoso

marionettes and costumes
Júlio Vanzeler

music
Roberto Neulichedl

lighting design
António Real

production
Mário Moutinho

cast
Edgard Fernandes, Rui Queiroz de Matos, Sara Henriques

marionette painting
Emília Sousa

lighting and sound operation
Rui Pedro Rodrigues

production assistant
Paula Anabela Silva

production secretary
Sofia Carvalho

assembly direction
Igor Gandra

construction technicians
Abílio Silva, Filipe Garcia, Vítor Silva

costume making
Branca Elíseo

collaboration
Patrícia Falcão, Isabel Leite da Silva

stage photography
Henrique Delgado

illustration
Júlio Vanzeler

show subsidized by
Ministério da Cultura, Câmara Municipal do Porto, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

press support
Jornal de Notícias, Público, TSF, RFM, Rádio Nova Era, AMC

Nada ou o Silêncio de Beckett

Teatro de Marionetas do Porto has completed ten years of hard and innovative work which made the company known, both nationally and internationally.

From a famous revue (Vai no Batalha) to the latest première (Nada ou o Silêncio de Beckett) everything seems to have changed. Everything but the creativity of the director and the skills of the actors-manipulators.

Between the light humour and the absurd humour, between the malicious farce and the revolutionary dramaturgy of Beckett, the way seems to be easy; taking a better look, we sense the demand and the innovation of someone who, staging Beckett’s work, ends up subverting it, in a radically entertaining version. The tree, for example.

The tree, first leafless, recovers the leaves as time goes by. It’s a fundamental element of “Waiting for Godot”, connected with time that passes without passing.

But in this performance the director multiplies the intensely green trees, full of new leaves and of new hopes brought by the abundant rains. “Variations on the theme of the dry tree which turned green, remaining absurd”, could be the subtitle of the performance. We recognize Beckett in the time mercilessly measured by the metronomes, clocks, whistles and bells of the sound effects. But where does Beckett’s influence begin and where does it end in the performance of the three men in straitjackets, who run over each other in an unrestrained competition? The version of the marionette who tries to reach and grab the suspended bottle using the overlapped boxes is unique. Eventually the manipulator hangs the marionette on the ceiling, forcing it to accept its absurd condition forever. Crawling or flying, buried to the neck or carrying impossible burdens, there are no ways out for human beings. If there is any, it’s dark humour. The most polemic thing of all are the scarcity of words. But one can always say that human beings don’t need words at all. With or without words, the human condition doesn’t change much. The rest is nothingness. Nothingness, night after night, blind in the darkness, looking for the place through which to get out. Nothingness except for the screams, the same as always. Nothingness.

Manuel João Gomes
in “Público”, 25 junho 1999

---

Nada ou o Silêncio de Beckett

UK premiere

“A remarkable performance, inspired in sensations, silences and characters of Beckett, between the light humour and the absurd humour, between the malicious farce and the revolutionary dramaturgy of Beckett”

Presented as “a homage to the best playwright of the twentieth century”, Nada ou o Silêncio de Beckett is inspired and “contaminated” by the universe of Samuel Beckett. Teatro de Marionetas do Porto banish the limits between marionettes, manipulators and actors, to create a performance influenced by theatre, dance and clowning, from Charlie Chaplin at his darkest, to circus show comedians.

Powerful images mix pathos and humour, with just a few beautiful lines of Beckett for text. Visions is delighted to bring this Portuguese company to the UK for the first time and their performance can only be seen in Brighton. Teatro de Marionetas do Porto has performed sell-out shows at European festivals and “Nada ou o Silêncio de Beckett” won two awards at the World Festival of Puppet Art, in Prague 2000.

in “Visions 2004”

---

Un merveilleux voyage dans l`univers de Samuel Beckett

JONQUIÈRE (yp) – “Nada ou o Silêncio de Beckett” plonge le spectateur dans l`univers de Samuel Beckett, dramaturge et romancier, qui a singulièrement illustré la tragédie humaine.

Bien sûr, se souvenir de l`existentialisme, de Jean-Paul Sartre et d`Albert Camus aide à mieux comprendre ce spectacle qui pourrait se traduire par < > chez Beckett. Très peu de texte et mon portugais se résume à bien peu de choses. Les jeunes étaient perdus au début, on peut le comprendre. Ils n`y comprenaient goutte mais quelle belle façon de s`ouvrir au monde, aux langues et aux cultures. Juste ce contact devient une découverte pour la plupart des jeunes.

Les trois comédiens du Teatro de Marionetas do Porto du Portugal s`attaquent à la tragédie humaine. La vie est absurde, n`a aucun sens ou but. Tout est recommencement et absurdité. La vie, les autres, la communication, l`amour, tout cela peut être futile. La vie et une simple agitation dans l`espace. Dieu a été enterré depuis longtemps. Monde dur, comme une question ou un mal lancinant, une douleur qu`il est impossible de guérir non plus.

Grande scène, table pour un banquet, minuscule scène avec comme toile de fond une clôture. Un monde nu qui prend tout son sens dans le questionnement. Ne cherchez pas la réponse !

Des marionnettes magnifiques, des comédiens manipulateurs, des mimes devrais-je dire, particulièrement expressifs et déguisés en Charlot nous appliquent une bonne dose d`absurde. Désir simple, résistance des objets, gestes qu`il faut toujours recommencer et reprendre. Le monde de Sisyphe ouvre le spectacle et le termine presque. Le grand cirque ! Contact quasi impossible entre les humains et aussi cette violence omniprésente et inévitable.

Des tableaux

Une beauté visuelle de tous les instants, des scènes découpées comme des tableaux et des marionnettes vivantes. Saisissant ! Souvent on a l`impression que c`est le pantin qui vit et non plus le manipulateur. Un manipulateur manipulé et vice-versa.

L`échange, une interaction singulièrement forte, nous plonge dans les grandes œuvres de Samuel Beckett. On y retrouve en filigrane “En attendant Godo”, “Oh les beaux jours”, “Fin de partie” et “La dernière bande” que l`on a pu voir il n`y a pas si longtemps à la salle Pierrette-Gaudreault avec un Gabriel Gascon savoureux.

Ironie, humour et des images fortes qu`une bande sonore particulièrement efficace appuie. Le tems qui file, le temps qui s`égrène et écrase l`être humain.

Des images et des situations quotidiennes, une relation avec un objet, une plante ou un autre humain qui se fait complice ou ennemi. Dérangeant et déstabilisant.

La seule incursion dans le monde de la parole devient un beau clin d`œil à “En attendant Godot”.

Une suit de cris qui se transforme en échos qui se confondent dans l`espace. Epoustouflant !

Cette impossibilité de communiquer, d`entrer en complicité avec un voisin ou l`autre devient ce cri qui déchire l`espace jusqu`aux confins de la galaxie. Un spectacle comme un condensé du monde de Samuel Beckett. Un délice malgré la gravité du propos.

Yvon Paré
in “Arts-Téle”, 12 setembro 2004

---

Beckett in the Puppet Festival of Porto

Praise of the absurd

“Nada ou o silêncio de Beckett” (Nothingness or the silence of Beckett), staged and choreographed by João Paulo Seara Cardoso for Teatro de Marionetas do Porto, reached the public in the IX International Puppet Festival of Porto. It was presented in Balleteatro Auditório last Saturday the 9th. It is called puppet theatre but it could also be considered a contemporary dance performance, a particularly dark Charlie Chaplin film or even a funny circus show.

“Nada ou o silêncio de Beckett” links the inventive spirit with a diversity of tools from other artistic territories. Following a narrative logic of short scenes, matching some figurative paths which develop alternately, this play is fit, above all, for the enjoyment of its small visual treasures.

Here the words are scarce, no more than a few desolately beautiful lines of Samuel Beckett on the edge of emptiness, of nothingness and silence, as in the title. The bodies of the three actors – Rui Oliveira, Sérgio Rolo and Marta Nunes – are as important and expressive as the marionettes they manipulate. Everyone, humans and marionettes, behave in the most strict observance of the laws of the absurd.

“Nada ou o silêncio de Beckett” is mainly a sublimation of the interweaving of physical movements until derision. In a scene, three identical male figures, restrained in straitjackets, start dancing at the sound of techno music, whose brutality contaminates their movements until the threshold of white violence. The same violence that, near the end, takes over the movements of other three macabre and crippled characters.

Humans are idiosyncratic beings with besieged and exposed personalities, helpless against the mechanisms of the systems, any systems, like scarecrows facing the hardships of storms. The sound signs of obedience are abundant, from the ticktock of the clock to the whistle. When the table on which the marionettes walked discloses a series of holes through which the heads of the humans and the marionettes appear, later replaced by bare hands and feet, we are dealing with the illusion of the manipulated and dismembered identity, until madness. After this and after the rain, an old man resembling Beckett strolls about the table riding a bike. He stops, the puppeteer rings the bell on top of his bowler, and the lights go off.

Jorge Manuel Lopes
in “Net Parque”, Dezembro 2000

---

Praise to Silence

Remarkable performance, inspired in sensations, silences and characters of Beckett
Presented as “a modest homage to the best playwright of this century”, by João Paulo Seara Cardoso, Nada ou o Silêncio de Beckett is a remarkable performance. Considered “a writer who exposes obscurity so that the world outside and inside becomes brighter”, Samuel Beckett makes a fantastic representation of the world. Adapting the universe of the brilliant Irish writer to the world of the marionettes was a challenge that Teatro de Marionetas do Porto proposed to tackle. A performance was thus created from impressions of the mordacious but illuminated world of Beckett, the ultimate playwright of the absurd. Everyone involved has plunged in the writer’s world by reading his plays and this experience originated a strong “contamination” of creators and actors with the landscapes and characters of the writer, that impelled the creation of this play. The première, in June 1999, was in Casa das Artes. The performance “looks like a yellowish diffuse dream” in which the actors wandered with the “Winnies, Didis and Gogos and all the gallery of men and woman impregnated with a strange empty silence, always touching slightly in the obscurity”, to feel, after all, the possibility of a more illuminated world. In fact, symbolism inhabits all the places that the play calls up. Silence, nothingness, alienation, the mystery of identity and other themes frequent in Beckett’s universe are evoked, allowing each spectator to establish a particular relation with what he observes. One of the most acclaimed performances produced by Teatro de Marionetas do Porto, Nada ou o Silêncio de Beckett won two important awards at the World Festival of Puppet Art in Prague, 2000.

Susana Silva Oliveira
in “Visao”, 29 março 2001

---

Sie hauchen den Figuren leben ein:Die Puppenspieler des „Teatro de Marionetas do Porto“ beherrschen ihre Kunst perfekt. Nicht immer hielten sie sich so im Hintergrund.

Puppen reisen in das Universum von Beckett
Auftackt in vollkommener Dunkelheit

Figuren warden lebendig, geradezu menschlich , Menschen bekommen puppenhafte Züge: Das „Teatro de Marionetas do Porto“ lässt die Grenzen zwischen Puppen, Puppenspielern und Schauspielern verschwimmen. Am Samstag war die portugiesische Gruppe im Prinz Regent Theater.

Am vorletzten Tage der „Findena“ drängten sich weit mehr Interessierte nach Eintrittskarten für“Nichts oder Becketts Schweigen“, als das kleine Theater auf dem ehemaligen Zechengelände fassen konnte. Wer eines der begehrten Tickets erhaschte, tauchte für gut eine Stunde in Samuel Becketts Universum ein, wie es die Portugiesen auf faszinierende Weise collagiert haben. Den Auftackt macht vollkommene Dunkelheit; Klavierspiel setzt ein und der Blick des Publikums fokussiert sich auf eine Bühne, die wie ein Laufsteg angelegt ist. Darunter ist sie hohl, was immer wieder überraschende Auftritte ermöglicht. Von vier geschickten Händen geführt, tritt die erste weissköpfige Puppe ihren Weg über die Bühne an, gebeugt unter der Last einer ledernen Truhe. Die Szene ist so authentisch, dass man meint, die Puppe ächzen zu hören, obwohl kein Wort fällt.

Ohnehin kommt die Inszenierung mit wenigen Sätzen aus. Dichte, teilweise humorvolle Bilder und immer wiederkehrende Motive – wie sie Charakteristikum Becketts sind – machen Worte überflüssig. Als Höhepunkt darf wohl eine Szene gelten, die Assoziationen an „Warten auf Godot“ weckt: eine Figur, mit grauem Sakko und schwarzer Melone genauso gekleidet wie ihre Puppenspieler, gehorcht im Schatten eines knorrigen Bäumchens den Trillerpfeifekommandos aus dem Dunkel. Ihr Ziel erreicht sie nie.

in “Ruhmachrichten”, 26 März 2003

---

Becketts Schweigen

Das wird spätestens klar, wenn sie am nächsten Tag mit „Nichts oder das Schweigen Becketts“ im kleinen prinz regentheater ihre Sîcht von Becketts Welt vermitteln. Und die ist vor allem heiter. Wir sehen Winnie und Willie oder Didi und Gogo, diese Figuren, die alle eine Beschädigung haben, die sinnlos vorwärts eilen und „höheren Mächten“ ausgeliefert sind. Das sind in diesem Fall die Puppenspieler, die aktiv ins Geschehen eingreifen, den Mann mit Steinen und Bäumen traktieren, aber auch mal selbst zu Fall gebracht werden. Die Männer in Anzug und Melone kämpfen mit dem Koffer oder Dingen, die ihnen unvermittelt vor die Nase gesetzt und genauso unbegreifbar wieder entzogen werden. Dass die Figuren, die an Stäben geführt werden, sich dabei jedem physikalischem Gesetz entziehen können, bringt sie Beckett nur noch näher.

Ronny von Wangenheim
in “Ruhmachrichten”, 26 março 2003